Website Usability Guidelines

Website Usability Basics (2 of 4)

What to Analyze - Now that you have a list of competitors, you need to draw up a list of items to analyze when you visit their sites. We have developed a categorized list of items over the years, which are included below:

• Homepage - How informative is the Home page? Does it set the proper context for visitors? Is it just an annoying splash page with multimedia? How fast does it load?
  
  
• Navigation - Is the global navigation consistent from page to page? Do major sections have local navigation? Is it consistent?
  
  
• Site organization - Is the site organization intuitive and easy to understand?
  
  
• Links and labels - Are labels on section headers and content groupings easy to understand? Are links easy to distinguish from each other? Or are they ambiguous and uninformative (click here or white paper)? Are links spread out in documents, or gathered conveniently in sidebars or other groupings?
  
  
• Search and search results - Is the search engine easy to use? Are there basic and advanced search functions? What about search results? Are they organized and easy to understand? Do they give relevance weightings or provide context? Do the search results remind you what you searched for?
  
  
• Readability - Is the font easy to read? Are line lengths acceptable? Is the site easy to scan, with chunked information, or is it just solid blocks of text?
  
  
• Performance - Overall, do pages load slowly or quickly? Are graphics and applications like search and multimedia presentations optimized for easy Web viewing?
  
  
• Content - Is their sufficient depth and breadth of content offerings? Does the content seem to match the mission of the organization and the needs of the audience? Is the site developing its own content or syndicating other sources? Is there a good mix of in-depth material (detailed case studies, articles, and white papers) versus superficial content (press releases, marketing copy)?

Conducting the Analysis - Now that you have a list of sites to visit and a list of criteria to compare, start your analysis. Be sure to conduct your analysis with some rigor. Don't be haphazard, and don't do things differently with each site visit. Try to analyze a site without interruption. In other words, do everything you can to reduce bias in your investigation.

Here are some additional guidelines:

• Visit one site at a time, and take the same (or at least, similar) paths through each site. Follow the checklist of criteria.
  
  
• For each criterion, take lots of notes. You'll refer to these notes when you organize and write your report.
  
  
• Try to give a score for each criterion as you complete them. That way you'll have scores for each major category as well as for each site.
  
  
• If the company that you're doing the analysis for has an existing site, then remember to rate them last. After visiting the company's competitors, this will give you some sense of objectivity. This also provides a good measurement comparison for the readers of your report.